[97] Herbert de Bosham.—p. 226.

[98] Jer. i. 10.

[99] "Suavissimas literas, supplicationem solam, correptionem vero nullam vel modicam continentes."—De Bosham.

[100] Urbane by disposition as by name.—Ibid.

[101] Giles, iii. 365. Bouquet, p. 243.

[102] "Quin potius dura propinantes, dura pro duris, immo multo plus duriora prioribus, reportaverunt."—De Bosham.

[103] The Pope had written (Jan. 28) to the bishops of England not to presume to act without the consent of Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury. April 5, he forbade Roger of York and the other prelates to crown the King's son. May 3, he writes to Foliot and the bishops who had received benefices of the King to surrender them under pain of anathema; to Becket in favor of Joscelin, Bishop of Salisbury: he had annulled the grant of the deanery of Salisbury to John of Oxford. May 10, to the Archbishop of Rouen, denouncing the dealings of Henry with the Emperor and the Antipope.—Giles, iv. 10 a 80. Bouquet, 246.

[104] The inhibition given at Sens to proceed against the King, before the Easter of the following year (A. D. 1166), had now expired. Moreover he had a direct commission to proceed by Commination against those who forcibly withheld the property of the see of Canterbury.—Apud Giles, iv. 8. Bouquet, xvi. 844. At the same time the Pope urged great discretion as to the King's person. Giles, iv. 12. Bouquet, 244.

[105] At the same time Becket wrote to Foliot of London, commanding him under penalty of excommunication to transmit to him the sequestered revenues of Canterbury in his hands.—Foliot appealed to the Pope.—Foliot's Letter. Giles, vi. 5. Bouquet, 215.

[106] The curious History of the Monastery of Vezelay, by Hugh of Poitiers (translated in Guizot, Collection des Mémoires), though it twice mentions Becket, stops just short of this excommunication, 1166. Vezelay boasted to be subject only to the See of Rome, to have been made by its founder part of the patrimony of St. Peter. This was one great distinction: the other was the unquestioned possession of the body of St. Mary Magdalene, "l'amie de Dieu." Vezelay had been in constant strife with the Bishop of Autun for its ecclesiastical, with the Count of Nevers for its territorial, independence; with the monastery of Clugny, as its rival. This is a document very instructive as to the life of the age.